Aircraft include more and more electronics on board that require additional electrical power for operation. The electrical power sources for these electronics, as well as the components forming the electronics add weight to the aircraft. As a result, the cost of carrying, for example, the additional generators and electrical components onboard the aircraft is an increasing part of the fuel cost.
One way to reduce the fuel cost is to make the electronic components smaller and/or lighter. For example, to reduce the size and/or weight of the power electronics, the operating pulse-width modulation (PWM) frequency of the power switches (IGBT's, FET's, etc.) may be increased. Additionally, using silicon carbide (SiC) based power components, the power converters in the electric drives and power supplies may be operated at higher frequencies to provide faster switching, such as with PWM frequencies in the hundreds of KHz. Operation at these higher frequencies allows for a reduction of the size and weight of these components by using smaller passive components in the filters connected at outputs of these components. For example, a size reduction may be accomplished by increasing the filter cut-off frequencies, which consequently, reduces the size of the capacitors and inductors that are used.
The reduction and/or optimization in size results in an increase in the complexity and speed of the controllers required to eliminate undesired oscillations of the controlled variables. These oscillations may be reduced or eliminated with additional damping resistors within the filters. However, the addition of the damping resistors reduces system efficiency and increases the heat that has to be eliminated from the apparatus. Alternatively, active damping may be added directly in the control. However, in conventional architectures, this active damping requires very fast sampling times of the processors.